Shapelab News

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[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Dear Shapelab community,

We are excited to announce this year’s first live-streaming event on January 26th from 12 pm (midday) EST on our Youtube channel!

This event will be a Q&A session, during which our 3D designer and Shapelab expert Dorottya Kiss will answer all the frequently asked questions about the app, so make sure you let us know if you have a topic that you would like to learn about! You can already ask questions on our Discord server (join here: Shapelab Discord)

Mark your calendars, and see you this Thursday on Youtube: Watch the event here

Best,
Leopoly Team

Dear community,

Shapelab sometimes crashed for some users when switching the dominant hand to left. We identified and fixed the issue.

Thanks for those reporting it!

Best,
Leopoly Team

Hey all,

A few of you have contacted us with problems with launching Shapelab. The ‘Please turn on your controller’ message appears even though your controllers are already turned on. Fortunately, in most cases this can be quickly resolved by taking the steps below.

A little background: the new Shapelab version uses OpenXR. This fundamental modification results in a bunch of benefits (e.g. SteamVR overlay apps can be used with Oculus) and makes further improvements easier, but it also means that some of you have to manually check if SteamVR is selected as OpenXR runtime, the following way:

1. Connect your headset
2. Launch SteamVR
3. Open the Settings for SteamVR from the hamburger menu on the top right corner of the panel
4. Select the Developer Panel
5. Make sure Advanced Settings are set to Shown
6. At the last setting click on Select SteamVR as OpenXr runtime

If you do all these steps and still encounter an issue, please let us know via email at [email protected] by sending a description of what happens, what hardware you use and also a player.log file, that can be found here: C:\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\Leopoly Kft_\ShapeLab\Player.log

P.s.: we also suggest you join our Discord server, where communication is easier with the team and other users from the community! :)

Best,
Leopoly Team

Dear Shapelab community,

We are happy to announce an update just in time for the winter holidays!

It has been some time since we last released a major update, but we can assure you that we have been working on the app since then, and we have big plans for 2023!

This new build is just the beginning, and along with some new features, it contains many improvements that are prerequisites for some powerful new features coming next year. See the full update note below.

We wish you happy sculpting sessions during this holiday season!

P.s.: Please note that our response time might be longer than usual on all platforms from next week until the end of the year, as we will also be taking a little break. We will see you in January!

Best,
Leopoly Team


UPDATE NOTE

OpenXR

• The new Shapelab version uses OpenXR. This fundamental modification results in a bunch of benefits (e.g. SteamVR overlay apps can be used with Oculus) and makes further improvements easier, especially when it comes to managing various VR controller key binding.
  This significant update also fixed a few, rare controller-related bugs.
  

Quad Support

• Supporting both Quads and Triangles. Quad-based meshes are no longer split into triangles automatically when imported.
  
• This is a prerequisite for new powerful modeling features that will come in 2023.
  

PBR Vertex Painting

• We have completed the Vertex Painting feature with 3 more channels allowing users to paint with 4
  
• different material properties in total: Color, Roughness, Metalness and Emission.
  
• Channels can be disabled, meaning the given disabled channel(s) will not override the properties that
  
• have already been applied to the surface.
  
• Material presets are available and users can save/add new presets to their library.
  
• MatCap materials do not support PBR painting.
  
• PBR Painted models can be saved as SL3D files or exported in GLB and FBX formats. To see how to import these files into Blender see the tutorial below.*
  

An update can be expected in early 2023 which will allow users to export their PBR paintings as textures as well.


Improvements, changes

• More robust undo/redo and memory handling system, that also allows users to set how much memory they would like to allocate for this purpose. This can be changed in Options -> User preferences.
  
• Dedicated “Invert brush button” for Oculus, HP Reverb and Knuckles devices.
  
• Using Oculus Controller mesh for HP Reverb. As Oculus and HP Reverb controllers are very similar, we temporarily assigned the Oculus Controller mesh to the HP Reverb controllers. This is a temporary solution which we believe is better than displaying the generic WMR controllers for HP Reverb. We will add the HP Reverb controller mesh in an upcoming update.
  
• Render optimizations
  
• More meaningful “disabled slider” design
  
• Remembering file names: file dialog automatically offers meaningful file names when saving or exporting files.
  
• Remembering file paths: added recent files list to file browser. The list displays the last five folders used to load or save files.
  

Fixes

• In some cases Oculus Controller Meshes were not oriented properly.
  
• In very rare cases HTC Vive Controllers could not interact with Shapelab user interfaces.
  
• Valve Index Controller help image was incorrect
  
• Sometimes saved project files were corrupted with missing components.
  

*GLB and FBX
files can be imported into Blender and all four channels can be utilized in the following way:

• On the "Shading" tab, create a new material, or use an existing material if you already have one.
  
• Add a new "Color Attribute" node: Add -> Input -> Color Attribute.
  
• At the bottom of the node, click the attribute selector, and select the first one ("Attribute" or "Col", depending on the Blender version). These are the vertex colors.
  
• Connect the "Color" output to the "Base Color" and the "Emission" of the material.
  
• Create a new "Color Attribute" node, but this time, select the second attribute ("Attribute.001" or "Col.001"). These are the PBR values, stored in a different color channel.
  
• Add a new "Separate Color" node: Add -> Converter -> Separate Color.
  
• Connect the second "Color Attribute" node's "Color" output to the "Separate Color" node.
  
• This node will split the PBR values: the red channel contains the roughness data, the green channel contains the metalness data, and the blue channel contains the emission strength.
  
• Connect the outputs of the "Separate Color" node to the material: Red -> Roughness; Green -> Metallic; Blue -> Emission Strength
  

Here is a short tutorial video for enabling the PBR material in Blender:
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